Archive for the ‘Vegan’ Category

Whenever I find a recipe I like, I try to tweak it and improve it. Most of the time it’s different but still good, very rarely is it weaker and occasionally you hit a rock your socks improvement. My adjustments are small. If it’s 90% vegetarian with the exception of chicken broth and butter why not try it with vegetable broth and olive oil and make it vegan especially when you cook for friends who are vegetarians. They will appreciate the effort.

My friend Vanise is not a pure vegetarian but leans in that direction by preference. When eating out or ordering a plate of food to go, she will usually order a vegetarian meal. I eat almost anything of any genre as long as it has bold flavors and is not sweet. I love to make people happy with my cooking so if I know what your favorite is and it’s a rich spicy food, I am going to do my best to make you happy and cook your meal your way. It simply never crossed my mind that anybody would compare the rich cheese flavor of the Penne and Cauliflower in white sauce to a vegan soup.

But I got over it when I recognized that both were creamy rich sauces with bold flavors and pasta. Vanise loved the cauliflower meal but loved the acorn squash soup even more. This meal started with a recipe for Italian Pumpkin soup which immediacy morphed into an acorn squash soup and now that I have added bay, deleted butter and changed to vegetable broth and eliminated Parmesan, we have arrived at our Souper Vegan Acorn Squash.

Take out the hot pepper slice and add the squash and broth to the pot. Cook for 2 hours until squash is soft to a fork.

Add the squash and broth to the pot

Remove Bay leaf and puree the rest of the soup in a blender. Return it to the coffeepot and hot plate.

Remove Bay leaf and puree the rest of the soup

About ½ hour before serving add the elbow macaroni to the pot.

Serve with fresh grated white pepper and nutmeg.

Even though the whole pot only contained 750 calories with about 1/3 from the olive oil, this was actually enough for two people. I had mine for dinner and Vanise had hers for lunch when she stopped by to check on me the next day. It is very flavorful and filling. It just happens to be vegan.

Before my Picture Perfect Borscht, the only other form of beets I would eat was pickled beets. Now that I am eating healthier, I have been including the pickled beets in my salads and enjoying them more. That reminded me of that old bar room appetizer of my ill spent youth, the Red Pickled Egg. Since you always ate them whole, I never realized how attractive they are until now and served these eggs cut in half on a tray with the accompanying pickled onions and beets as a side dish. This recipe is very flexible and there is enough liquid to pickle 0 to 12 eggs.

3 Hard Boiled Eggs, shelled

Ingredients:

1 can of beets, 15 ounce

1 onion sliced thin

3 hard boiled eggs, shelled

2 Tablespoons Brown Sugar

1 thin slice Scotch Bonnet pepper.

½ cup white vinegar

Directions:

Drain liquid from beets into coffee pot, add Brown Sugar,hot pepper and vinegar to the pot and place on the warmer to heat.

Place layers of sliced on on the bottom of your container or widemouthed jar and place pealed whole eggs on top.

Add beets and the rest of the onions

Add beets and the rest of the onions to the container.

Poor the warm liquid over the beets

When all the sugar has dissolved, remove and discard the hot pepper slice (or not for hotter flavor) and poor the warm liquid over the beets.

After one day the beets have full flavor after 3 days they color goes to the yoke.

After one day the beets have full flavor

With the pepper removed as above, this is a mild yet flavorful variant of Red Pickled Beet Eggs made with white sugar and no hot pepper.